


naive melody

by bevcrushers (dothraloki)



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Found Families, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, blink and you miss it tom/harry implication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 09:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20079958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dothraloki/pseuds/bevcrushers
Summary: B'Elanna and Harry reflect on their situation out here in the Delta Quadrant.--writer's month prompt 2: hurt/comfort





	naive melody

**Author's Note:**

> set around season 2

It felt as if B’Elanna hadn’t stopped to catch her breath all evening. Engineering had been whirlwind of organised chaos, half-hanging on the precipice of functionality, and when midnight rolls round, she looks up to discover she’s the only one still working.

She drags herself, aching and sore, to the mess hall, fully expecting to be the only one up at the time. She just needs ten minutes – ten minutes without the constant thrum of the warp core, ten minutes without hearing _‘Lieutenant Torres’_ every forty-five seconds, ten minutes to drink her hot chocolate and watch the stars in peace.

She arrives to find it mostly deserted except for everyone’s favourite ensign, sat at the far end of the mess hall, draped half in shadow. And she knows for a fact he’s on bridge duty at zero-seven hundred hours.

Which means, clearly, something's wrong.

B’Elanna’s never been quite good at that – consolation, comfort, reassurance. She found her own emotions a struggle to manage, never mind someone else’s. But there’s something about the sad hunch of his shoulders, the way he stares contemplatively down at the brown liquid in his glass. Maybe it’s because he was always the chipper one, amiable and ever optimistic, or maybe, it’s because truthfully she has the tiniest of soft spots for him – either way she finds herself approaching.

“Forgotten the way to your quarters?” He glances up at her voice, face softening ever so slightly. It’s not a very good joke, but Harry doesn’t seem to mind, motioning to the chair opposite. B’Elanna sinks into it, cradling her own mug.

“Just taking it all in,” he says with a smile that's equal parts tired and sad. “You?”

“Engineering.”

Harry nods in silent acknowledgement.

“Everything okay?” she ventures after a moment. “Just - I’ve never known you not to grab your eight hours when the opportunity presents itself.”

Harry’s snort is soft as he glances down at his glass. “Today’s my birthday.”

“Oh,” she blinks, a little stricken. “Happy birthday?”

He dismisses it with a hand. “I didn’t expect anyone to remember, and it doesn’t matter, not really. It’s just that birthdays are kind of a big deal in my family.”

“I never knew that.”

“Oh yeah. We do parties, the whole thing,” he smirks, at some distant memory. “ I guess I can’t help but think about my folks and what they’re doing today. How they’re handling it,” he runs a hand across his jaw. “They don’t even know that I’m out here - that I'm alright.”

“It’s hard,” is all she says - all she can say in the face of it. Platitudes are useless and she knows it, all she can do is feel it with him. And he looks up at her, nods, eyes strangely, sadly bright.

“And for you too,” Harry says, after a minute. “Sorry – I always forget.”

B’Elanna frowns, considering it. To tell the truth, she hadn’t really thought about it – or no, more accurately, she _tries_ not think about it. She finds that dwelling on their situation, on the hopelessness of it all, is too depressing to consider for more than about five minutes. But she’d be lying if she said it never crossed her mind in the quieter moments - when she’s filling out routine paperwork, when she’s trying to get to sleep at night - her mind occasionally lingering on old Maquis friends, old Starfleet friends, even family.

“It’s different for me,” she shrugs, glancing down at her mug. “I didn’t leave my actual family on the best of terms. There are others though - people who are more than that.”

Harry makes a quiet noise of understanding and comfortable silence envelopes them once again.

“I wish we could just tell them,” he says, after a moment. “Just say ‘we’re okay.’ That’s all I want.”

B’Elanna nods. She’d hoped for it a thousand times over - some way of communicating, some way of sending a _message._ It couldn’t be done, and she knew that – not without some kind of advanced alien technology, some external influence – but it didn’t stop her from hoping for it, thinking about it.

“So what do we do?” Harry asks, gaze firmly trained on his glass. “How do we cope?”

“Well. We do the best we can. We put our heads down and get on with the job,” she says, decisively. And then cringes, hearing echoes of Janeway in her voice. “And I guess we make new family.”

Harry glances up at her, and before she can talk herself out of it, she reaches across the table, resting her hand over his. If he’s surprised, he doesn’t say anything. Instead he grasps her fingers tight, smiling slightly at the gesture. All of a sudden, B’Elanna’s glad she decided to come down here.

“It’s probably never going to feel the same,” she admits. “But there’s Paris –"

She watches as Harry ducks his head, fighting to keep the knowing smirk off her face.

“- Chakotay, the Captain, hell even Tuvok. I guess they’re the people around you now. The people that care.”

“And there’s you,” says Harry, so earnest it makes her eyes burn.

“Yeah,” she says, slightly hoarse. “And there’s you.”

Harry squeezes her hand again, and she turns her head to look out at the stars, away from the intensity of the moment.

“Don't worry, Harry. We'll figure it out."


End file.
